How to Style a Bookshelf When You Have a Lot of Books
I'm not going to deny it, I love looking at a perfectly styled shelf with plenty of breathing room and lots of interestingly displayed objects. There are many great posts out there that break down the formula for your perfectly styled bookshelf and this post isn’t that!
Humboldt by Sarah Montgomery Interiors | Photo by Dustin Forest Halleck
However, many of us need our bookshelves to act as just that, a place to hold our books. Don't feel bad if you don't have all leather and gold bound books or a separate room in your house just to hold your well worn and dog-eared paperbacks. There are ways to make bookshelves with majority books look a little more curated and I can show you how. I've got three great tips for making your bookshelf look a little more styled.
Kenilworth by Sarah Montgomery Interiors | Photo by Margaret Rajic
1. Vary Horizontal and Vertical Stacking
I like to start by dividing up all my books by size. This way I can grab books to work with easily. I start by making a few horizontal stacks that can be my anchors, see A, B and C. If you like the size of a book in your stack, but the title is silly or the color doesn't work, just turn it around. No one will notice! Horizontal stacks tend to be bigger books so I like to place them near the bottom of the bookshelf and vary their placement in a zig zag. If you have some larger objects it's nice to place them on these lower shelves as well. A globe, squatty vase, decorative box or nice bowl works great.
Lakeshore by Sarah Montgomery Interiors | Photo by Frank Frances Studio
2. Add Color to The Back of Your Bookshelf
This is a great way to make your bookshelf look more harmonious. If you don't want to paint you can always use contact paper or temporary wallpaper in a solid color. I painted the back of my Ikea bookshelf in regular latex wall paint, and because the back attaches separately, I was able to lay it flat to paint and it was a cinch. If you're feeling more adventurous you could use a texture like grasscloth or even a pattern! Because grasscloth is stiff, it is super easy to apply and you could definitely attach it with a little double stick tape.
Unpatterned, Photo by Dustin Halleck | Rose Architectural Studio, Photo by Kensington Leverne
Pattern on a bookshelf can go in a few different directions. You can go bold with both the pattern and the shelf color, then balance it with more neutral books and objects. Or, let a patterned back do more of the work and leave some breathing room between objects and stacks of books so it doesn’t get too busy. The more that’s happening with color and pattern, the more intentional you’ll want to be about what goes back on the shelves.
3. Display Books by Size and Use Bookends
If you can adjust your shelves, I like to keep the top shelves a bit smaller. I keep all of my shorter paperbacks in these upper shelves. This uniformity and above eye level placement keeps you from focusing on this area too much. If you need almost the whole width of the shelf for books, adding in bookends is a great way to make it look more intentional. I like to keep the height of my books consistent between bookends.
Kenilworth by Sarah Montgomery Interiors | Photo by Margaret Rajic
To get the most bang for your buck you can stack books large to small against the edge of the shelf and break up the bookend pair onto two different shelves. Have fun with the bookends, they don't have to be scholarly. You want to hook people with your quirky objects only to impress them with your great taste in literature.
Lakeshore by Sarah Montgomery Interiors | Photo by Frank Frances Studio
Bonus - Don't forget you can stack and layer back to front and always lean some smaller framed pieces!
Don't forget to have fun and get creative with it. Or just call us.
